It Begins

        This week’s readings of Fred B. Kiffen and Henry Glassie’s “Building in Wood in the Eastern United States: A Time-Place Perspective” and James Deetz’s In Small Things Forgotten were both helpful in forcing me to consider fashion, and specifically the corset, in different ways. I hadn’t realized that most objects could be analyzed in similar ways until reading Deetz’s work, in which he uses numerous examples of material culture to exhibit the shifting American culture and its values.

Deetz successfully explains the significance of historic archaeology and the study of material culture in our understanding of the past. By using several examples of recently studied pieces of American material culture—including Glassie’s study on Georgian houses and his own on New England tombstone design—he uses the developments of these examples to identify their cultural significance. His explanation of the differences between prehistoric and historic archaeology were helpful, as I had previous knowledge of the methods of prehistoric archaeologists and it is important to recognize the differences between the two. One point that Deetz emphasizes is the importance of the use of historic documents to complement the study of objects. This will be especially important for our class, as it will be necessary in the study of many of our objects to apply historic documents (inventories, letters, diaries) to help understand the cultural significance of our specific objects. I noted some pieces of advice that Deetz gives the reader, such as mentioning the museum exhibit of a seventeenth century house not capturing what it was actually like during that time, but rather being more based on the minds of the modern creators of the exhibit. I took this as a warning to remain as unbiased as possible during my study of the corset.

Kniffen and Glassie’s article examines in extreme detail the various technologies and building techniques used in early America. Through their study on the types of framing and log construction, they identify techniques particular to certain regions in the United States. When reading this article, I recognized balloon framing and horizontal construction with corner posts from specific eighteenth century buildings still visible in the area. I found it interesting that log cabin style houses were considered only temporary until a more permanent structure could be completed. After reading Deetz, throughout this article I was disappointed at the lack of cultural meaning applied to the study. In the summary section at the end, Kniffen and Glassie state their next step is “to shed greater light on the cultural meaning of the several methods of timber construction.”  This article was almost a highly detailed and wide-ranging object description. Although wood construction and costumes seem unrelated, the methods of analyzing them connect, and I continuously thought about fashion while reading the article.

       Similarly, when reading In Small Things Forgotten I couldn’t help but apply historic costumes, particularly corsets, to many of his points. For example, Deetz’s section on the development of New England tombstones being affected by a changing worldview and the Great Awakening caused me to consider fashion. I understood that evolving ideologies changed the intended functions and cultural significance of garments on a regular basis, and am interested to research and apply this to my own project.

[1] Fred B. Kniffen and Henry Glassie, “Building in Wodd in the Eastern United States: A Time-Place Perspective,” in Dell Upton and John Michael Vlach, eds., Common Places: Readings in American Vernacular Architecture (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986), 178.